Unwanted pop up

The is a pop up that starts every time I start my computer. It is called Advanced Mac Cleaner. It takes quite a while to shut it down. How do I get rid of it once and for all? I use ClleanMyMac 3 to clean things up. It does a great job. I installed S/W to prevent pop ups, but this one gets through.

Well, first off you don't need CleanMyMac at all. I have seen reports where CMM got a bit overly enthusiastic at cleaning and deleted files that turned out to be needed by the system.

On the popup, is it showing at boot, i.e., with nothing running yet, or is it showing up when you open your browser? Most pop ups are browser related and are the result of going to a website that hijacks your browser and may even change your home screen so that they can show you the popup. Or it's from an extension or add-on that they installed into your browser. But if it's popping up before you invoke the browser, it's something else that has gotten through to your system. We need to know before we can tell you what to try. Otherwise we'd have to tell you to try things all over the spectrum to cover all the possibilities.

So, please give us more information about this pop up.

And if you think you need to clean your system, the only tool we recommend here is Onyx, from www.titanium.free.fr . It's free and works.

It shows up on startup only

when I open the browser

Per your suggestion I tried to download Onyx but got an error message saying it can't be opened because it is from an unidentified developer

The app was installed as an unwanted "extra" along with some app you installed. You have to be very careful when you download and install apps and avoid using sites that frequently include add on apps.

This is an article that offers more background as to what it is and how you got it. Also it talks about an uninstaller offered by AMC which you can find here: http://advancedmaccleaner.com/uninstallguidelines
BTW: the article says the download link for the unistaller is a link below but it is actually in the upper right corner.

If all else fails you can do some things on your own. Go to Activity Monitor which is in the Utilities folder. Under process name find the entry for Advanced Mac Cleaner it will be called MacDefender, select it and click Quit Process. A dialog should pop up, asking if you are sure you would like to quit the Advanced Mac Cleaner executable. Select the Force Quit option

Now go to your Applications. Find the Advanced Mac Cleaner entry, right-click on it and select Move to Trash. If user password is required, enter it.

Now go to Apple Menu and pick the System Preferences option Select Accounts and click the Login Items button. Mac OS will come up with the list of the items that launch when the box is started up. Locate Advanced Mac Cleaner there and click on the "-" button to remove it.

This will not get rid of all the "garbage" it leaves behind but it should stop the popups.

Lisa

Thank you very much "idea". I will do as you say.

To get Onyx to install and run, right click on it (CMD-click on one button mouse) then click on Open in the resulting warning box. Onyx is a trusted program here, works well, and is a great tool for fixing a lot of problems.

What sent that warning was Gatekeeper, a security feature from Apple that stops applications that don't come through the Apple store. But Onyx is a good program, so it's ok to ignore the Gatekeeper warning on this one.

Computer neophyte here: How do you ignore the warning from Gatekeeper?

You get to ignore the warning by right-clicking (CMD-Click) on the app, then Open, then you will get a warning box that it is not an "approved" app or some such. That's Gatekeeper. If you click "Open" in that warning, Gatekeeper will go away and let the application run. Generally, I'd say don't ignore Gatekeeper unless you really do trust the source and the app, it's there for a purpose. But in the case of Onyx, it's OK to ignore the warning and let it run.

I think I did what you said Jake, i.e.turned off Firewall and hit cmd click (a click on the mouse?) and it still won't open

By searching around the Net for OnyX I see that on some sites it is free, and on others it costs. Is it free or not?

When you say "right-click" I don't think I have that option with my mouse. I am on a new 1Mac. The mouse is not hard wired.

No, Firewall is NOT Gatekeeper. You can, and probably should, turn Firewall on again. Gatekeeper is a function of the operating system wherein any time software tries to install, your system checks back with Apple to see if the software is properly "signed" by an approved Apple developer or the Mac App Store. If not, the installer won't run, as you found. The bypass of Gatekeeper is to right-click on the application, which triggers a menu box, and then choosing "Open" from that menu. That selection, in turn, triggers Gatekeeper again to check with Apple, but this time the warning box does give you the option to run the software anyway, even if Apple doesn't have the developer on their approved list or the application didn't come from the Apple Store.

Right click is done by holding down the Control key and then clicking. Here is the Apple article on that:

https://support.apple.com/kb/PH25085?locale=en_US

I think I had previously said Command Click, which was incorrect. I have my Magic Mouse configured to have a left and right click. If you have an Apple wireless mouse you can configure yours that way, too, in System Preferences/Mouse by checking the "Secondary Click" box on the Point & Click menu.